Harare West legislator Joana Mamombe who is jointly accused together with Citizens Coalition for Change youth leader Cecilia Chimbiri of ‘faking abduction’ today left the Harare magistrates court stunned after she dropped an emotional testimony while narrating how she was tortured at the hands of the state.
Mamombe who is applying for referral of her matter to the Constitutional Court accused the state of violating her rights following her arrest.
She is being represented by Jeremiah Bamu and Alec Muchadehama of the Mbidzo and Muchadehama legal practitioners.
“I feel that this prosecution is very political in the sense that my rights were violated by my political rivals.
“This is a political case, I was the member of the MDCA I represented my constituency under that party and at the time of the arrest I was the member of the youth National executive of that party. I was holding one of the powerful position of that party secretary for policy, this is not coincidence that my political rivals have information that forms part of the evidence, how did they get those if it is not a political matter,” said Mamombe while the whole gallery went silent even the breaths could not be heard.
She added, “I insist this is a political matter. We are being victimized for supporting an opposing party, clearly our political rights are violated.
“I don’t think we are going to have a fair trial because this amounts to political persecution,” said Mamombe.
In opposing the application, Prosecutor Tafara Chirambira said Mamombe’s rights were not infringed.
“How do you say that your right to a fair trial is infringed,” said Chirambira.
However, Mamombe said since her arrest, “they have not yet had access to information and particulars which they intend to use for this trial and police have confiscated their cellphones and belongings with some information given to the state media.
“Most of the information is already in the public domain and it was leaked from the police.
“ZBC aired our story as a documentary pre-trial and pre emptying the proceedings of this case. Our rights were violated by ZBC, the police confiscated our phones and downloaded various communication which the state is now using as evidence, this is illegal evidence because it was not in my consent,” she told the court.
She also added that when they were in police custody they were attended to by private and government doctors with some of their medical information also published in the media without their consent.
“Our rights to dignity and psychological torture, it’s cruel and degrading treatment especially comments that were made during the sharing of those videos.
“Some of the material is already in public so will we get justice? I feel that this current case is just a process of going through a political persecution because I have suffered since May 2020 until today. No one cares about the prejudice that I am suffering, we asked for further particulars from the police but it was vehemently denied by this court. Is this prosecution or persecution or is this prosecution a way of persecution?” queried Mamombe.
The hearing postponed to Wednesday.
